CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Everything was lined up for a significant Thanksgiving eve snowfall in West Virginia but the initial wave of the storm didn’t gather the momentum that was originally predicted.
“The snow shield developed as it should have and it came when it should have but apparently the upper dynamics were not quite strong enough for the intensity to become heavy,” National Weather Service Meteorologist John Victory told MetroNews.
So instead of 3 to 5 inches of snow the Weather Service and others were predicting, some were saying 4 to 8 inches, it ended being 2 inches in most areas. With a little less snow in some areas and a little more in other locations.
“We didn’t get that heavy burst we expected,” Victory said.
It was a favorable development for travelers on the day before Thanksgiving. Most of the major highways through West Virginia were just wet through the morning rush hour. Victory said the second wave of the storm could bring snow squalls Wednesday afternoon and those could cause a few localized travel problems.
“They could put down a quick half an inch or a little bit more in a relatively short period of time,” he said.
The eastern mountains of West Virginia were also in for additional accumulation through late Wednesday.
The Thanksgiving Day forecast includes partly sunny skies with temperatures in the lower to mid-30s.